The Year's Best Science Fiction 11

IN THE RUINS ROALD DAHL

Somewhere among the bricks and stones, I came across a man sitting on the ground in his underpants, sawing off his left leg. There was a black bag beside him, and the bag was open, and I could see a hypodermic needle lying there among all the rest of the stuff.

“Do you want some?” he asked, looking up.

“Yes, please,” I said. I was going crazy with hunger.

“I don’t mind giving you a bit so long as you will promise to produce the next meal. I am quite uncontaminated.”

“All right,” I said. “Yes.”

“Caudal injection,” he said. “Base of the spine. You don’t feel a thing.”

I found a few bits of wood, and I made a fire in the ruins, and started roasting a piece of the meat. The doctor sat on the ground doing things to the stump of his leg.

A child came up, a girl of about four years old. She had probably seen the smoke from the fire or smelled the smell of cooking, I don’t know which. She was very unsteady on her feet.

“Do you want some, too?” the doctor asked.

She nodded.

“You’ll have to pay it back later,” the doctor said.

The child stood there looking at the piece of meat that I was holding over the fire on the end of a bent curtain rod.

“You know something,” the doctor said, “with all three of us here, we ought to be able to survive for quite a long time.”

“I want my mummy,” the child said, starting to cry.

“Sit down,” the doctor told her. “I’ll take care of you.”